Bamboo Union/ United Bamboo

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

So… I just became interested in Bamboo Union after hearing about Chen Chi-Li’s death, and started to google around.

I couldn’t find any other topics. Anyone know anything interesting about them?

This is my understanding from looking at a couple of articles so far:

Bamboo Union started in the 1950s to take on local punks in the Taipei 'burbs. They were the kids of KMT supporters, so a lot of them had military parents, which meant that had some decent organisation. For the next 20 years or so the government was more concerned with political dissidents than street crime, so the gang was able to grow and prosper.

They did usual gang stuff for a while. Then we had the Chung Li and Kaohsiung Incidents (people rioting for democracy). So the KMT saw they were losing support. Bamboo Union was already pro KMT, so why not team up?

KMT bought votes (I guess BU just bullied people into voting). When the public didn’t like what the gangsters were doing, they just threw some in jail for a little while. The KMT looked the other way on BU crimes - Taiwan became a heroin hub, probably did some human trafficking and a lot of gambling.

Then I’m not sure… I need to read some more. I think some Bamboo Union members became interested in politics. Anyone know which politicans are ex-gangsters?

And then there was the Henry Liu murder, which seems like a pretty big deal. Chen Chi-Li was ordered, with the help of a couple of military people to kill the guy for writing bad stuff about Chiang Ching-Kuo. The guy who ordered the hit was the son of Chiang Ching-Kuo.

Chen Chi-Li went to jail for a couple of years, and got out again. Then a little while later he was on the run for another crime (money laundering or something I think) and fled to Cambodia. He died there this month.

So what are Bamboo Union/ United Bamboo up to these days? I read that they have a strict moral code, so I guess if you ever see and ‘gangster types’ around causing trouble they’re probably not Bamboo Union.

I think the most interesting thing I realised from reading a little bit is that the Taiwanese democracy movement really didn’t start that long ago. They’re really doing pretty well so far, I guess.

Edit: Just started reading this. It explains a bit about gangsters in politics.
books.google.com/books?id=LtP3BM … Q#PPA23,M1

2

Strict moral code? That’s laughable. I worked for a bamboo union politician for a couple of years when I was living in Jiayi, and I regularly drank with a bunch of them around ten years ago in Taipei. They’re just gangsters. The only remarkable thing about them is how much political power they have in the upper echelons.

3

Chen Chi-Li died in Hong Kong, not Cambodia.

4

Tecnhnicality, He was living in Cambodia and came to HK for treatment. I used to fly fairly regularly to Australia via Saigon and the stretch from Taipei to HCM was almost always crowded with gangsters.

The high moral code of these thugs stretches to prostitution, people smuggling, money laundering, stand over and protection rackets, loan sharking, beatings for hire, and the like. Nothing much to like about them.

HG

5

Nooo! Wikipedia lied to me! …On further research, it seems to be that way. Maybe they had some kind of vague code a long long time ago. Apparently there once was a time when they didn’t want to get involved in drugs, but now they’re just regular drug/ people peddling thugs.

I guess that’s the way things go when you have 10, 000 individuals who want money and will do anything to get it.

6

Except for those groups that established themselves on the back of the drug trade like Khun Sah or the cocaine cartels, organized crime figures don’t generally admit to trafficing or smuggling drugs. There is a war on. That doesn’t mean they aren’t heavily involved that means they want to stay below the political radar.

7

Those were the days where organised gangsters tend to fight for territorial rights as that will in the way covers small time business like prostitution, protection rackets, DVD distribution and so on. But I believe time has changed. Nowadays those real big gangsters are going for big business like setting whatever business, for public listing. What’s inside the actual business of the company, is not important. The real focus is more on how much money that can be made up of the public issues, or rights/bonus at the later stage. Those that still fight for territorial rights are mostly small ‘fries’.

Even Lo Hsing Han, one of south east Asia’s infamous opium lords, ‘reinvented’ as a Rangoon businessman was happily organizing Myammar military dictator’s daughter wedding.

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8

It’s joked around that the gangsters are prominently into extortion, blackmail, and spying these days.

They’re called the paparratzi (spelling?) and the media and the numerous agencies available to dig up information and spying on people.

The “reporters” act like they’re doing an honest job yet do things gangster-like. Gossip sells and heck even a few pics here and there on the right person and that’s EASY MONEY.